Biography 

Under the direction of the late Manning Marable, Zaheer Ali served as one of the project managers and a senior researcher of the Malcolm X Project (MXP) at Columbia University, a multi-year research initiative on the life and legacy of Malcolm X. As project manager, he was associate editor of an online annotated multimedia version of The Autobiography of Malcolm X (2004), and later contributed as a lead researcher for Marable's comprehensive biography Malcolm X: A Life of Reinvention (2011). Since the release of Malcolm X: A Life of Reinvention, Ali has appeared on several major media networks discussing some of the book’s findings, including CNN, MSNBC, CBS, C-SPAN, and Al-Jazeera.  

He has taught courses on Islam and Black America (Columbia University), Malcolm X (New York University and the City College of New York), as well as American history from colonial times to the present (New York University); and he has assistant taught African American studies courses on Black intellectual history, Black political leadership, and jazz and politics (Columbia University).

Ali also serves as Senior Advisor to Jennifer Maytorena Taylor’s New Muslim Cool (2009), the first full-length documentary film exploring indigenous American Muslim culture and its deep connections to hip hop and broader social justice movements in African American and Latino communities. The critically acclaimed film premiered as the 2009-2010 season opener for “POV” on PBS television, and was screened at U.S. Embassies abroad as part of the State Department-supported American Documentary Showcase. In 2010, as part of the Showcase, Ali traveled to Bahrain to present the film and lead discussions on Muslim life in America.

He is currently a doctoral student in history at Columbia University, where he is focusing his research on twentieth-century African-American history and religion. His dissertation examines the history of the Nation of Islam's Temple/Mosque No. 7 in Harlem, New York, from 1954-1965, during the time of Malcolm X’s ministry.

He is an alumnus of Harvard University, a Mellon Mays scholar, a recipient of Columbia University's Merit Scholars Graduate Fellowship, and a multi-year recipient of the Social Science Research Council's Mellon Mays Pre-Doctoral Research Grant.

He has contributed to TheRoot.com, and is currently a member of the Editorial Advisory Board of SOULS: A Critical Journal of Black Politics, Culture and Society.

Zaheer Ali has given presentations in both academic and non-academic settings, and is available to speak on a broad range of topics, including Islam and Black America, the history of Black nationalism and the Black freedom movement, the life and legacy of Malcolm X, and the importance of historical preservation through oral history and archiving.

For more information, please direct all inquiries via email.

(Photographs: Omar Mullick)